If it was poffible, therefore, that a person fhould grow up to manhood without any communication with fociety, his own actions might, notwithstanding, be agreeable or difagreeable to him on account of their tendency to his happiness or difadvantage. He might perceive a beauty of this kind in prudence, temperance and good conduct, and a deformity in the oppofite behaviour: He might view his own temper and character with that fort of fatisfaction with which we confider a well contrived machine, in the one cafe; or with that fort of diftafte and diffatisfaction with which we regard a very aukward and clumsy contrivance, in the other. As these perceptions, however, are meerly a matter of taste, and have all the feebleness and delicacy of that species of perceptions, upon the juftnefs of which what is properly called tafte is founded, they probably would not be much attended to by one in his folitary and miserable condition. Even though they fhould occur to him, they would by no means have the fame effect upon him, antecedent to his connection with fociety, which they would have in confequence of that connection. He would not be caft down with inward fhame at the thought of this deformity; nor would he be elevated with fecret triumph of mind from the consciousness of the contrary beauty. He would not exult from the notion of deferving reward in the one cafe, nor tremble from the of

All fuch punishment in the other.

fentiments the idea of some

other being, who is the natural judge of the perfon that feels them; and it is only by fympathy with the decifions of this arbiter of his conduct, that he can conceive, either the triumph of felf-applaufe, or the fhame of felfcondemnation.

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PART

PART V.

Of the INFLUENCE of CUSTOM and FASHION upon the fentiments of moral approbation and difapprobation.

Confifting of one Section.

CHA P. I.

Of the influence of custom and fashion upon our notions of beauty and deformity.

T

HERE are other principles, befides those already enumerated, which have a confiderable influence upon the moral fentiments of mankind, and are the chief caufes of the many irregular and discordant opinions which prevail in different ages and nations concerning what is blameable or praise-worthy. These principles are custom and fashion, principles which extend their dominion over our judgments concerning beauty of every kind.

When two objects have frequently been feen together, the imagination acquires a habit of paffing eafily from the one to the other. If the first appears, we lay our account that the fecond is to follow. Of their own accord

they put us in mind of one another, and the attention glides easily along them. Though, independent of cuftom, there fhould be no real beauty in their union, yet when custom has thus connected them together, we feel an impropriety in their feparation. The one we think is aukward when it appears without its usual companion. We mifs fomething which we expected to find, and the habitual arrangement of our ideas is difturbed by the disappointment. A fuit of cloaths, for example, feems to want fomething if they are without the most infignificant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we find a meannefs or aukwardness in the abfence even of a haunch button. When there is any natural propriety in the union, cuftom increases our fense of it, and makes a different arrangement appear ftill more difagreeable than it would otherwise feem to be. Thofe, who have been accuftomed to fee things in a good tafte, are more difgufted by whatever is clumfy or aukward. Where the conjunction is improper, cuftom either diminishes, or takes away altogether, our fenfe of the impropriety. Those who have been accustomed to flovenly disorder lose all fenfe of neatnefs or elegance. The modes of furniture or drefs which feem ridiculous to ftrangers, give no offence to the people who are used to them.

Fashion is different from cuftom, or rather is a particular species of it. That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those wear who are of a high rank, or cha

racter.

racter. The graceful, the eafy and commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they happen to bestow upon it. As long as they continue to use this form, it is connected in our imaginations with the idea of fomething that is genteel and magnificent, and though in itfelf it should be indifferent, it feems, on account of this relation, to have fomething about it that is genteel and magnificent too. As foon as they drop it, it lofes all the grace, which it had appeared to poffefs before, and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, feems to have something of their meannefs and aukwardness.

Dress and furniture are allowed by all the world to be entirely under the dominion of custom and fashion. The influence of those principles, however, is by no means confined to fo narrow a sphere, but extends itself to whatever is in any respect the object of taste, to mufic, to poetry, to architecture. The modes of drefs and furniture are continually changing, and that fashion appearing ridiculous to-day which was admired five years ago, we are experimentally convinced that it owed its vogue chiefly or entirely to custom and fafhion. Cloaths and furniture are not made of very durable materials. A well fancied coat is done in a twelve month, and cannot continue longer to propagate, as the fashion, that form according to what it was made. The modes of furniture change lefs rapidly than those

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